We’re traveling again!
This time it’s a cruise aboard the Grand Princess from Fort Lauderdale
to Buenos Aires; 19 days. The highlight
of the trip for us is a two day stay in Rio de Janiero during their
world-famous Carnival celebration. We
will also stop at a couple of other Brazilian port cities, and four islands in
the Caribbean.
We caught the Santa Rosa Airport Express on Thursday evening
for the ride to SFO. Once there, we
transferred to a hotel shuttle to a hotel near the airport. Pretty ingenious, huh? The next morning we caught the hotel shuttle
back to the airport and our Virgin America flight to Fort Lauderdale. It was a spectacularly uneventful
flight. Once on the ground again, we
took a shuttle bus through Fort Lauderdale’s evening traffic rush to our hotel
for the night. After checking in and
grabbing a beer at the hotel bar, we got a dinner recommendation from the
bartender for a nearby Cuban restaurant.
We last enjoyed Cuban food a number of years ago in Key West, and still
remember how good it was, so we were quickly on our way.
It was a short walk, even though we got a little lost. Once there, we sat back to enjoy a couple of
what the menu called a “Giant Mojito”.
The server seemed a little surprised that we ordered one each, but
whatever. When we saw her carrying one
mojito, and another server carrying the other, we figured we were in
trouble! We told her we were walking,
not driving, and she seemed OK with that.
The drink was delicious, as was the food that followed. We made it safely back to our hotel where Tom
almost immediately fell asleep (or passed out?). However we slept well and both of us were
fine the next morning.
We were scheduled for a shuttle bus to the cruise terminal
at 11 AM, and one showed up right on schedule, but through some sort of mix-up,
there were more passengers waiting than could be accommodated in the medium
size bus. So the driver told us that
they were sending a larger bus, and he left, without taking anyone! A 30-minute wait brought another bus, and
upon boarding, we figured out that this was a PARTY BUS!! Flashing lights, thumping music, and video
screens front and back gave us the first clue; the next clue was the presence
of a chrome pole in the center of the bus.
If you have cruised before, you can probably figure out that this was
not normal transportation for cruise passengers. Once we were all loaded, we took off to the
cruise terminal, Boom-bada-boom-bada-boom.
Ears ringing, we got off the bus to see a line of several
hundred people, all waiting to board our ship.
Bummer!! Since cruise lines board
thousands of people every week, you’d think they could do it with efficiency,
but no, they haven’t figured it out, yet.
About two hours later, we finally got on the ship and made it to our
room. The next step was, of course, to
find a beer and some lunch. Princess
ships have a hamburger/hot dog stand on the pool deck next to a cocktail bar,
so it was pretty much one-stop shopping.
We were set to sail at 4 pm, but at that time there was
still a line of passengers waiting to board.
Besides that, we understand that a plane-load of passengers had yet to
arrive. We finally got underway around 6
pm after a beautiful sunset with all souls on board.
A highlight so far is a lecturer, John Maxtone-Graham, an octogenarian who is an author and ship historian whose specialty is Atlantic Ocean Liners. On Sunday he spoke about the early days of steamships in the Atlantic, from the 1830’s to the Titanic tragedy of 1912. Today he told stories told to him by survivors of the Titanic sinking. As I said, he’s an octogenarian, so he was able to interview at least three of them before they died. He tells fascinating stories and we look forward to hearing more from him as the cruise progresses.
We have two days at sea before arriving in St. Thomas on
Tuesday. We spent our honeymoon there
almost thirty years ago, so we know that the primary activity on the island is shopping. I expect that we’ll do just that, at least
for a while. We’re on St. Thomas for the
day, and then head off to Antigua on Wednesday.
We’ll have more to tell you in a day or so.
